A.1 P2V

The P2V conversion utility enables you to convert a computer's
operating system (Linux and Microsoft
Windows™) and applications to an Oracle VM
hardware virtualized guest image. The P2V utility is included on
the Oracle VM Server CD. You can access the P2V utility by restarting a
computer with the Oracle VM Server CD. The Oracle VM Server startup screen is
displayed. At the boot: prompt, enter:

p2v

You can use a P2V kickstart file to automate creation of hardware
virtualized guest images from physical computers. This section
discusses the options and parameters of the P2V kickstart file.

The P2V utility converts disks on the computer to virtual disk
images. The virtual disk images are created as IDE disks (hda,
hdb, hdc, hdd, and so on) on the guest, using the original disk
names. When you use a P2V kickstart file, up to four disks are
automatically deployed in the guest. Any extra disks are converted
and added to the guest configuration file (vm.cfg), although they
are not deployed. To deploy the additional disks in the guest,
edit the guest configuration file, remove the comments from the
disk entries, and map the additional disks to SCSI device names,
for example, sda, sdb, and sdc. The boot disk must always be
mapped to device hda. Any files on the guest which contain
references to these devices must also be changed, for example, the
/etc/fstab file may contain references to /dev/hda1, /dev/sda1,
and so on.

When you use a P2V kickstart file, at least one network interface
must use DHCP. This is required for the computer running the P2V
utility to read the kickstart file over the network. The network
configuration for this network interface cannot be modified from
the kickstart file.

If you want the P2V utility's web server to listen using a network
interface other than the one used to initiate the kickstart
session, the network configuration (DHCP or static IP address) for
that network interface can be specified in the kickstart file.

A number of screens may be displayed prior to the P2V utility
starting with a kickstart file. You can suppress these screens to
fully automate the P2V utility. Prior to the P2V utility starting,
you may see up to four screens:

P2V Network Configuration screen

Language selection screen

Keyboard selection screen

Installation source screen

The following examples show how to suppress these screens.

Example A.1 Suppressing the P2V Network Configuration Screen

To suppress the P2V Network Configuration screen, supply the
Ethernet device on the command line, for example:

p2v ks=http://example.com/ks.cfg ksdevice=eth0

Example A.2 Suppressing the Language Selection Screen

To suppress the Language selection screen, supply the language
kickstart parameter, for example:

lang en_US.UTF-8

Example A.3 Suppressing the Keyboard Selection Screen

To suppress the Keyboard selection screen, supply the keyboard
kickstart parameter, for example:

keyboard us

Example A.4 Suppressing the Installation Source Screen

To suppress the Installation source screen, supply the source
kickstart parameter, for example:

A.1.1 Options

The following parameters are accepted in a P2V kickstart file.

p2v

Indicates the kickstart file is intended to automate a P2V
conversion. This parameter is required in order to perform
an automated P2V conversion and should be supplied at the
Oracle VM Server boot: prompt instead of
install, update, or
rescue. It accepts no parameters.

target
[option]

Sets the end destination for the guest image.

The
option
parameter can only contain the following:

--ovmmanager

Sets the P2V utility to operate in HTTPS server mode to
transfer the guest image to a running instance of
Oracle VM Manager.

diskimage
[option...]

Denotes a disk to be included in the guest image. The P2V
utility uses device mapper-based snapshotting to copy the
disk as a system-*.img file on the
target computer. There may be multiple
diskimage directives in a P2V kickstart
file, each resulting in a disk image in the guest image.
The --device parameter must always be
used with the diskimage directive to
indicate which device should be imaged.

The
option
parameter is one or more of the following:

--device path

The device to image. path must be the
full path to the device. For example:

diskimage --device /dev/sda

--type [IDE | SCSI | LVM | MDRAID]

Sets the type of disk. Must be one of
IDE, SCSI,
LVM, or MDRAID.
Devices /dev/hda, /dev/hdb, /dev/hdc, and /dev/hdd
should be IDE. Devices /dev/sd[a-zz]
should be SCSI. A logical volume
should be LVM. Devices /dev/md[a-zz]
should be MDRAID. For example:

diskimage --device /dev/hda --type IDE

network
[option...]

Configures network information for the computer.

The option parameter is one or
more of the following:

--bootproto [dhcp | bootp | static]

Sets the method by which the network configuration is
determined. Must be dhcp,
bootp, or static.
The default is dhcp.
bootp and dhcp are
treated as the same.

dhcp uses a DHCP server to obtain the
networking configuration, for example:

network --bootproto dhcp

static requires all the necessary
networking information. As the name implies, this
information is static and is used during and after the
installation. The entry for static networking is more
complex, as you must include all network configuration
information on one line. You must specify the IP
address, netmask, gateway, and nameserver, for example: